Masanori Kanehara Eyes UFC Deal at Deep Tokyo Impact 2012

Former Sengoku featherweight champion Masanori Kanehara only needed one round to beat Guam’s Tony Reyes in their bantamweight fight at Deep Tokyo Impact 2012.
Kanehara was asked to comment about the fight and he mentions: “When I got hit with the low blow I thought I was finished, but as the main event fighter I knew I couldn’t give up.” The win earned him his 20th win with impressive fight card stats of 20 wins, 10 losses and 5 draws in his career. Reyes on the other hand falls to 5-5 with his defeat.

The most significant move during the fight was a kick to the groin delivered by Reyes to Kanehara which was delivered only less than a minute in the fight. Kanehara took time to recover but after a while, he was able to pick up the pace and a lazy kick to the body plus a hard right straight sent Reyes reeling backwards of the ring. Kanehara made a chase for Reyes lashing out hard right hands until one landed on him; there were a few blows and counter attacks until the referee stopped the fight at 4:28 in the round.

Kanehara commented after the win that he has plans on aiming for a higher-level win and a much coveted UFC contract.

On other fights at the Deep Tokyo Impact 2012, lightweight mainstay Juri Ohara won a first round knockout victory over Genki Osako, a ZST veteran. The fight ended with a single right straight that finally put Osako to sleep; this happened at 4:04 of the opening round.

Bantamweights Naohiro Mizuno, a Shooto veteran had a unanimous decision win over Toshinori Tsunemura. All the judges scored to bout in favor of Mizuno who lashed out chokes, fists and kicks leading to an amazing 10th career victory.

There are so many great fighters who have won their place in Deep 2012. Lightweights Kenjiro Takahashi defeats Ryosuke Togashi after referee Kenichi Serizawa pulled Takahashi off Togashi to stop the fight. Featherweights Hikaru Hasumi defeats Katsuyoshi Beppu as two out of three judges favored the fight over Hasumi who managed to control the amazing fighter with multiple combinations. More wins are in favor of Yusuke Kanaeda, featherweights Takahiro Ashida and Yudai Aoyama with a draw, lightweight Yuta Kaneko, Luke Mori, bantamweight Shotaro Kaneda and Kenji Yamanaka and Takahiro Yoshida both flyweights with an unanimous draw decision.